A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Wedding . . .

After photographing more than 700 weddings, I can safely say that weddings generally follow a pattern – getting ready, ceremony, portraits, then on to the party. But every wedding is different, and it’s those differences that make for exciting photography. Here are a couple of memorable examples:

So we get to the bride’s house to start photography, and she’s in a simple but elegant tea-length dress. We grab a couple of quick shots and the bride smiles and explains this is not her wedding dress. It turns out her brother went to polish his shoes with liquid shoe polish . . . (wait for it!) . . . and spilled the bottle of black polish all down the front of her dress! Wouldn’t you know it, but a neighbor had a wedding dress from a few months earlier, and it fit! The bride was really good about the whole incident and we captured some wonderful memories of her special day, short dress and all.

We were delighted to be photographing twin sisters who were marrying two brothers. A big church wedding! One sister is tall and skinny, the other is shorter with a few curves. As we’re grabbing candids of the girls getting ready, the tall sister lets on that this is probably the second time in her life she’s ever worn a dress. She’s a bit of a wild-child, her sister explains. The tall sister finally says “I can’t take this any more,” and yanks her dress up above her knees to reveal awesome zebra-striped stockings! Well, of course, I had to snap photos of the tall sister being herself. Afterwards, we were off to the church to photograph the proudest dad in the world as he walked up the aisle separately with each daughter. After a double ceremony, we created some amazing photographs of the new couples, then went on to enjoy a great party.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! We stepped into the lobby of an apartment building on Park Avenue in NYC. After the elevator was unlocked, we were sent to the fifth floor to meet our bride. A butler invited us in, and we discovered that the bride’s family called the entire fifth floor their home. Mom was an Egyptian diplomat, and had a special room set aside for her work, decorated in a tent motif. On the floors throughout the apartment were actual lion, tiger and bear rugs! The bear had realistic eyes, and it’s mouth was open to show a scary set of teeth. We carefully walked around the rugs until the butler said, “Oh, you can step on them. Like this . . . ” and he gingerly set his toe on one of the bear rugs. We grabbed some great shots of the happy bride in her amazing surroundings, then drove on to Central Park for the ceremony and party.